You
have asked me here today to further your study of containerized
freight traffic in Canada’s ports, specifically, as you state in
your letter, “to look into the institutional and physical obstacles
to the competitiveness of Canada’s intermodal transportation
system.” I will attempt to do so.

We are here today
in Vancouver, talking about the expansion of the Vancouver Port.
However that expansion is not taking place here. It is taking place
in Delta, and it is in Delta that the major impacts will be felt. I
wish therefore that you had come to Delta for this Hearing. However,
you haven’t. And so I will attempt to bring Delta to you.

Delta is home to
100,000 people.

I know, as you
undoubtedly do too, that in China’s rise to economic leadership and
in the building of its ports and infrastructure to send its goods to
the world, China simply told hundreds of thousands of people –
you’re moving – to make way for that development. There are people
involved in the Gateway Project who, it has been reported, have said
“we wish we could do that here.”

But they can’t. Not
yet. We still have, in Canada, a semblance of democracy. But only a
semblance.

Delta is the
doorway to Asian trade. Delta is the doormat.

The Port, to date,
has reduced our air quality, endangered the Pacific Flyway, befouled
the waters surrounding the Port, and reduced the quality of life for
our residents with noise, light and air pollution, traffic
disruption and an endless stream of dangerous trucks driving through
the heart of our communities.

Now, with the
expansion of the Port – first with the Third Berth already approved
and under construction, then with the all-new Terminal 2 – all of
those negative impacts will increase further, in the name of
economic competitiveness.

The Environmental
Assessment review of the Third Berth was seriously flawed. To begin
with, it was intended to assess the cumulative effects of Terminal 2
and the Third Berth. Then the Terminal 2 was withdrawn from the
Assessment, on the grounds that it was just “a twinkle in someone’s
eye” and not a reality.

Documents released
last week prove otherwise.

In a deal between
the Vancouver Port Authority and the Tsawwassen First Nation,
executed by the parties in November 2004, VPA agreed, among many
other things, to pay TFN Two Million Dollars on the Ratification
Date of the agreement, followed by a further One Million Dollars to
be paid when Environmental approval was given to the Third Berth
expansion, and a further One and a Half Million Dollars when
Environmental approval is given to Terminal Two. That’s a very
expensive “twinkle in someone’s eye,” and it also smacks of
bribery.

I expect you’re
probably unfamiliar with the location of the Tsawwassen First
Nation. Their present Reserve – and future Treaty Lands – are
located on the shore of the Strait of Georgia between the causeway
to Vancouver Port and the causeway to the Ferry Terminal. The
Tsawwassen people stand to suffer the most from Port expansion. They
will have the Port with its light, noise and air pollution, and the
polluted waters between the two causeways at their front doors. And
behind them, a huge container storage area and a multi-track train
yard. It will ruin their quality of life. But I guess money talks.

And all of this
must go forward to ensure the competitiveness of Canada’s ports and
the competitiveness of Canada’s intermodal transportation system.

I think we should
look at that more closely.

80% of the economic
activity at Vancouver Port is incoming. Only 20% is outgoing. Is
that trade deficit sustainable? The United States doesn’t think it
is. They have the same trade imbalance there, and they are getting
understandably, and vocally, worried. And so should we. It is
unsustainable.

China
itself – the reason for all of this development all up the west
coast and across Canada – is falling into disarray. The pollution
produced as a side product of all those running shoes, watches and
bottles of shampoo, is poisoning the air, the water and the people
of China and now, according to scientific studies, it is causing
serious weather disturbances to the west coast of BC.

Delta Council has
submitted to the Environmental Assessment Office and to various
government officials and agencies, its concerns relative to air
emissions, road and rail induces traffic delays, commercial truck
safety, accidents, emergencies and spill response, noise
disturbance, lack of river dredging, container storage, and I will
leave you copies of our detailed submissions.

We have also
expressed our concerns regarding the many negative impacts on the
lives of Delta residents, the disregard and devastation of heritage
sites and buildings, the possible alienation of ecological
communities both on land and in the waters, and the lack of
meaningful consultation with and participation bys Delta and Lower
Mainland residents and voters in what should be, but is not, a
democratic process.

And now I am back
to your stated mandate: to look into the institutional and physical
obstacles to the competitiveness of Canada’s intermodal
transportation system.

The Lower Mainland
itself poses a major physical obstacle. This is a small area bounded
by mountains and the Strait of Georgia. It contains over four
million people and millions of significant birds and other species.
It also contains the most arable land in all of British Columbia,
land that is absolutely necessary to feed the people of British
Columbia, and beyond that, the people of Canada.

The Gateway
Project’s plan for its intermodal transportation system in the Lower
Mainland will remove thousands of acres of food-producing
agricultural land to make way for roads and railway tracks for the
trucks and trains to transport containers to and from the Port.
Hundreds of acres will also be removed through the Tsawwassen Treaty
to provide room for container storage for the Port. And this is not
fallow land. This is land that is actively farmed. We cannot afford
to lose another acre of our food-producing lands – or our scarce
industrial lands - to 8 or 10 storey high piles of empty
containers, which must be stored here because of that unsustainable
balance of trade I referred to earlier: 100 containers in – only 20
containers out.

Delta has recently
passed a bylaw regulating the storage of containers in our
municipality. We have done so to preserve as much of our land as
possible for productive industry and agriculture. And to locate the
storage facilities where they will be least disruptive to other
traffic, and where container traffic movements can be made safely.

It might be
considered by some that the people of Delta, the people of the Lower
Mainland, the birds, fish and other species, the agricultural lands,
the zoning powers of municipalities - it might be considered by
some that all of these are obstacles to the competitiveness of
Canada’s intermodal transportation system.

In my view, the
biggest obstacle is the consortium of the Gateway organization,
Vancouver Port, the Province of British Columbia and the Government
of Canada, of which you are a part.

In pursuit of
economic competitiveness, this consortium has ignored the people.

We are all in
favour of a strong economy, one which provides jobs and profits and
a high quality of life. We can have that. But not when the people,
the fish, birds and wildlife, the agricultural lands and the
legitimate zoning powers of municipal government are considered
obstacles to be ignored or eliminated.

The Corporation of
Delta has, for many years now, tried to work with the Port to
achieve their ends while protecting the quality of life for our
people. But it hasn’t worked.

The people are not
happy in Delta. They are not happy in the other communities that are
experiencing or will be experiencing the impacts of this economic
endeavour. And there has been no attempt to provide meaningful
mitigation for those impacts.

The Senate of
Canada, of which you are members, is the senior level of government,
positioned to provide a check and balance against the more
politically-driven House of Commons and to protect and enforce the
principles of democracy in Canada.

As the Gateway
Project has unfolded, leaf by leaf, with no consultation, the people
of Delta and of the Greater Vancouver Regional District have come to
question the reality of democracy in this country. You are its final
bastion. I and they look to you for the conformation that it still
exists.

If you have any
questions, I would be pleased to answer them. Also, Ian Radnidge,
our Director of Engineering, is here. He keeps more numbers in his
head than I do in mine.

Thank you for
listening. I would be pleased to provide you with a tour of Delta so
that you can see for yourself what is happening.